Links: 09/18/15

Dauntless, Frank Gonzales

Are college lectures unfair? “Yet a growing body of evidence suggests that the lecture is not generic or neutral, but a specific cultural form that favors some people while discriminating against others, including women, minorities and low-income and first-generation college students.”
She wrote it–but she shouldn’t have: “So many of these recent essays make a show of maximal divulgence, but are too half-baked and dashed-off to do the work of real introspection.”
She wrote it–but she really isn’t an artist, and it isn’t really art: “Men write these kinds of pieces all the time. They just aren’t seen in the same, marginalizing light. A man writing about his drug addiction or squandered nights in sweaty sheets is just considered normal. Interesting. Literary.” This article also makes a point of highlighting this: “Society sees women of color’s shameless writing as proof of deviance, not a relatable and fun story to share on social media.”
Great interview with Kate Beaton: “I think that what’s really happening there is that women in history or literature are often presented to us as sort of second-tier importance. We hear less about them, we study them less, representations of women are likely to be ‘less’ somehow.”
I love “Kitchen of the Future” films: “These films and pamphlets and pretty websites aren’t selling you goods, but rather ideas, narratives, and stories about how the future is going to work, and how their company fits into that future.”
Locked Tight: “They understand that the online world has become a horror show, and that men largely drive that horror.”
I once got into it on Twitter with someone from the knitting world about their use of this word. I lost a lot of respect for them that day. “Words matter. Like icebergs, nine-tenths of their heft lies out of sight. Insults like gay and lame can kill. If you’re not gay or lame, you might not see the grinding damage that’s occurring below the waterline to those who are.”
On not giving up: “I have to do what I do, even if the world decides it’s worthless. I have to follow my own compass and give it my best and hope to connect. I have to carve messy emotions into a useful shape that feels inspired but not reductive.”
Roxane Gay on unlikable characters: “I want characters to do the things I am afraid to do for fear of making myself more unlikable than I may already be. I want characters to be the most honest of all things — human.“
The uniquely American myth of Satanic cults: “‘Regardless of intelligence and education, and often despite common sense and evidence to the contrary, adults tend to believe what they want or need to believe; the greater the need, the greater the tendency.'”